Executive Coach | Your Copilot to a Fulfilling Life and Career Growth | Powered by the Ignite Life Method™ | Coached 1,200+ Leaders at Dropbox, Salesforce, Coinbase | Take the Quiz to See What Needs to Shift — Now

Do you feel that you are stuck in your career,
life overwhelmed with busyness, 
and you are disconnected from yourself... 
then we need to talk.

Most high achievers I coach aren’t broken — they’re just disconnected.

🚨 Disconnected from their purpose.
🚨 Disconnected from the work they once loved.
🚨 Disconnected from the life they truly want to live.

It shows up as: STUCK, FRUSTRATION, LOST.

❌ Career stagnation
❌ Constant firefighting
❌ Burnout masked as busyness
❌ Imposter syndrome despite success

I help ambitious professionals — founders, product leaders, and emerging executives — reignite clarity, rebuild courage, and create conscious impact using The Ignite Method™.

You don’t have to choose between growth and fulfilment. You can have both.

🔥 The Ignite Method™

1. Clarity Journey — Rediscover who you are and what truly matters.
2. Courage Building — Move through fear and start acting boldly.
3. Conscious Impact — Create a career and life that actually feels like success.
4. Cohesive Action — Align what you think, feel, and do every single day.

🎯 What My Clients Gain

✅ Unshakable clarity on what’s next
✅ Courage to make big, aligned decisions
✅ Confidence to lead teams or businesses with purpose
✅ Energy and ownership to thrive at work and at home

📍 A Bit About Me

- PCC Certified Coach (ICF)
- 1,200+ leaders coached in 18+ countries
- Clients from Google, Coinbase, Dropbox, Salesforce, Intel, EA Sports, Rubrik, Visa, Zynga and more
- TEDx Speaker: Can Fear Push Us to be Courageous? Google it!
- Founder, IgnitedNeurons — a platform helping build a culture of high performance, growth mindset and based in values!
- Building the IgnitedNeurons Podcast to extract lessons you and I can apply in everyday life

💼 If You’re Leading a Team or Organisation:
I also partner with founders, HR heads, and L&D leaders to design bold cultures, build values-driven teams, and humanise leadership.

📩 Ready to Take the First Step?
Take the free 5-minute Ignite Life Quiz to discover what’s holding you back.

Let’s ignite your next chapter.

Utkarsh Narang

Most career advice tells you to bounce back fast.

This story says something far more important.

At the 2026 Golden Globes, EJAE (Kim Eun Jae) accepted the award for Best Original Song for “Golden” from Netflix  Kpop Demon Hunters.
She became the first Korean-American to win at the Golden Globes.

But that’s not the part that matters most.

What matters is what came before the win.

She spent 10 years chasing one dream.
To become a K-pop idol.

She was rejected.
Told her voice wasn’t good enough.
Watched the original plan fall apart.

So she did what many of us are doing right now.

She adapted.

She leaned into what still worked.
She stayed close to her craft.
She rebuilt her identity instead of abandoning it.

And years later, she stood on that stage not as what she once wanted to be
but as something truer to who she was becoming.

Here’s why this matters if you’re:
• scared of being laid off
• already laid off
• quietly questioning your career path
• thinking about a pivot but afraid to start over

A detour is not a downgrade.
A rejection is not a verdict.
And changing direction is not failure.

Careers are not ladders anymore.
They are stories.

And the people who win long-term are not the ones who never get disrupted.
They are the ones who don’t let disruption silence their voice.

If you’re in a season of uncertainty, remember this:
Your next chapter does not need to look like your last one to be meaningful.

♻️ Repost this for someone navigating a career reset right now.
➕ Follow Utkarsh Narang for grounded perspectives on career change, resilience, and rebuilding with confidence.

Executive Coach Helping Ambitious Professionals Breakthrough Stuck Careers & Inner Frustration | Ignite Life Method™ | Coached 1,200+ Leaders at Dropbox, Salesforce, Coinbase | Take the Quiz to Reignite Yourself

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My dad hired a tennis coach at 70.

Let that sink in for a moment.

Seventy years old.
Retired.
Comfortable.

And yet, he decided to hire a tennis coach.

Not because he wants to compete.
Not because he wants to prove anything.
Just because he wants to get better.

That one decision stayed with me.

Most people slow down with age. They protect comfort.
They say things like, “What’s the point now?”

My dad doesn’t.

He shows up to the court.
Listens. Practises. Learns.

Like a beginner.

Watching him, I realised something important about growth.

Growth is not driven by fear of falling behind.
It is driven by love for learning.

No pressure. No urgency. Just curiosity.

As a son, it inspires me.

That is what I have always prioritised. Learning. Growing. 
Always asking what more and what’s next?

I thank my dad for it. 70 years. Racket in hand. On the court.

That’s discipline.
That’s presence.
That’s a quiet kind of courage.

And most of all, that’s love, for life, for movement, for becoming a little better than yesterday.

If I ever wonder what kind of man I want to be as I grow older, I don’t have to look far.

I just look at my dad.

If this lands, don’t rush past it. Sit with it.

Growth has no expiry date.

li_at

JSESSIONID

Talks about #personalgrowth, #bebettereveryday, #leadershiplessons, #utkarshbrainspark, and #leadershipcoaching

During one of the worst layoff periods at a global cryptocurrency company, I was coaching their senior leaders.

The market had turned. 
Pressure was relentless. 
Decisions were being made fast, often without the space to process the human cost.

The instinct was predictable.
“We need to rebuild fast.”
“Let’s hire stronger people.”
“Let’s bring in fresh energy.”

But that wasn’t the real problem.

The people being let go weren’t weak.
They weren’t uncommitted.
They weren’t unrealistic.

They were exhausted from uncertainty, confused by shifting priorities,
and slowly losing trust in how decisions were being made behind closed doors.

What finally changed things wasn’t a new hiring plan.

It was a harder, quieter set of conversations.

Leaders started asking different questions.
Not “How do we replace them?”
But “What made staying feel impossible?”

Layoffs don’t just reduce headcount.
They expose culture.

They amplify how safe it feels to speak up,
how clearly people understand the future,
and whether leaders default to control or clarity when things get uncomfortable.

If people keep leaving, hiring faster only treats the symptom.

The real work is understanding what your culture is teaching people about loyalty, growth, and honesty when the pressure is on.

Because the truth is simple and inconvenient: people don’t quit companies at scale, they quit environments where staying starts to feel like self-betrayal.

Before you open the next role, make sure the work environment you’re hiring into is one people would actually choose to stay in.

♻️If this resonated, repost it so someone else sees it today.
➕Follow Utkarsh Narang for more thinking on growth, resilience, and building momentum over time.

Did you know most people quit their goals by the second week of January?

Not because they’re incapable.
But because they’re relying on motivation instead of structure.

Motivation is unpredictable.
Systems are not.

The people who actually stick with their goals don’t “try harder.”
They design their environment to make follow-through easier.

That means:
• clear reminders
• real accountability
• visible tracking
• time protected on the calendar

If you’re feeling stuck, scattered, or unsure what to focus on next, clarity is the real starting point.

Take the Ignite Life Quiz to understand where you are right now and what deserves your energy next. 
(📌DM “Quiz” for the link)

♻️ Repost if this resonated.
➕ Follow Utkarsh Narang for practical thinking on career growth, transitions, and building stability in uncertain times.

1 simple way to stay more consistent with your 2026 goals

Most people see pressure as a sign they are doing something wrong.

But the people who grow see it differently.

Pressure often shows up right before something meaningful changes.
Not as a threat. As a signal.

The same goes for mistakes.

Not proof of failure.
Proof of engagement.

You only get feedback when you are actually in the arena.

The real shift is this:
stop taking friction personally.

Treat it as information.
Something to study, not escape.

Curiosity does what confidence cannot.
It keeps you moving when certainty disappears.

Growth does not come from ease.
It comes from staying present through discomfort and choosing to refine instead of retreat.

If things feel heavy right now, that does not mean you are off track.

It might mean you are finally working on something that matters.

♻️If this resonated, repost it so someone else sees it today.
➕Follow Utkarsh Narang for more thinking on growth, resilience, and building momentum over time.

You can’t change what you can’t measure.

Every January, we promise ourselves:
 “More clarity.”
 “More courage.”
 “More impact.”
 “Better habits.”

But most resolutions fade because there’s no baseline.

You don’t know:
 – where you’re clear
 – where you’re stuck
 – where you’re avoiding
 – where you’re actually making impact

And without that… change becomes guesswork.

Over years of coaching, I’ve seen this pattern repeat:
People don’t lack motivation. They lack visibility.

That’s why we built the Ignite Life Scorecard — a free tool to help you measure where you stand across:
 👉 Clarity
 👉 Courage
 👉 Action
 👉 Impact

No labels. No judgment.

Just an honest snapshot of where you are right now.

If you want 2026 to be intentional — not accidental — start by measuring.
👉 Take the free scorecard here: https://lnkd.in/gEYUvyea

Because awareness isn’t the end of growth. It’s the beginning.

Welcome to another beautiful week. When an idea sparks that I think is worth sharing, it becomes this weekly newsletter. If something hits home, write

Open article: You Can’t Change What You Can’t Measure by Utkarsh Narang • 3 min read

You Can’t Change What You Can’t Measure

A year ago, on January 1, 2025, the IgnitedNeurons podcast had 24 subscribers. 

Not 24 thousand.
Twenty-four.

There was no launch strategy.
No momentum.
No guarantee anyone would care.

Just a decision to show up… even when it felt pointless…
to have real conversations, hit publish, and do it again the next week.

Fast forward to January 1, 2026: 873 subscribers.

Still not viral.
Still not flashy.
But undeniably built.

Here’s what changed in that year:
not my talent,
not my confidence,
not my circumstances.

What changed was that I stopped waiting to feel ready
and started acting like the life I wanted was already under construction.

Most people don’t fail because they aim too low.
They fail because they keep rehearsing a better future
instead of tolerating the boredom and doubt of building one.

One year will pass anyway.
The question is whether you’ll be able to point to something real or just another version of the same wish.

What are you quietly committing to build this year, even if no one’s watching yet?

♻️ Repost if this feels like the right reminder for this stage of the year.
➕ Follow Utkarsh Narang for more clarity on growth and inner work.

I took a two-week break from work recently.

It was calm.
It was slow.
It was peaceful.

And yet, something felt uncomfortable.

Not because of money.
Not because of pressure.

I was okay on that front.

The discomfort came from somewhere else.

Freedom isn’t time off. It’s knowing what you return to.

Work gives me energy.
It gives me joy. It gives me a sense of who I am.

During the break, I realised how much I value that.

We are often told that if you truly love life, you should want to escape work.
That wanting to return means you are trapped or over-attached.

That isn’t true for me.

When I came back to work on January 5, it felt… right. Almost joyful. Not because I had to work. But because I wanted to.

That moment taught me something important.

Freedom is not about getting away from work. Freedom is about choosing work that gives you energy instead of taking it away.

If something lights you up, don’t push it aside. Don’t feel guilty about it. Don’t let someone else’s definition of balance make you doubt yourself.

Hold on to it.

And if you haven’t found that yet, keep going.

Try new things.
Change direction.
Learn about yourself.

There is a place where effort feels meaningful.
Where work feels like contribution, not compromise.

When you find it, you won’t need convincing.

You’ll feel it.

♻️ Repost if this feels like the right reminder for this stage of the year.
➕ Follow Utkarsh Narang for more clarity on growth and inner work.

I have learned to enjoy my own company.

This didn’t come naturally to me.

There was a time when silence felt heavy.
When being alone felt like something was missing.

So I filled the gaps. Anything to avoid sitting with myself.

Over time, I realised something uncomfortable.

If I couldn’t be alone with my own thoughts, no amount of company would fix that.

So I started small.

Early mornings.
Quiet walks.
Journaling with no agenda.

At first, it was awkward.
My mind kept wandering.
I wanted to reach for my phone.

But slowly, solitude stopped feeling empty.

It started feeling honest.

In solitude, there is no performance. No role to play. No one to impress.

Just you, as you are.

That’s where I hear myself most clearly.
That’s where I notice what excites me and what drains me.
That’s where my values show up without being forced.

Solitude is not loneliness.

It is presence.

It is choosing to sit with your life instead of escaping it.

And the more comfortable I became with my own company, the richer my relationships became. With my work, family, and with myself.

Now, I protect my solitude.

Not because I want to disconnect from the world. 

But because it helps me show up fully when I do.

The most important relationship you’ll ever build
is the one you have with yourself.

A reminder for the first week of the new year.

Stress is rarely about pressure.
It is about postponement.

❗️The email you are avoiding.
❗️The decision you keep circling.
❗️The conversation you know you need to have.

Unfinished things quietly drain more energy than hard work ever will.

This year does not need a perfect plan.
It needs movement.

✅ One small action today can release weeks of mental weight.

If 2026 is about anything, let it be this:
Do the thing you keep delaying.

Momentum follows action.

♻️Repost if this feels like the right way to start the year.
➕Follow Utkarsh Narang for more reflections on growth, leadership, and clarity.

Getting Joshua Freedman on the IgnitedNeurons  Podcast didn’t happen because of reach, status, or a perfectly crafted pitch.

It happened because of patience.

I reached out.
Then I waited.
Then I followed up, respectfully.
Across platforms - LinkedIn. Email.
Not chasing. Not spamming. Just staying present.

And I did it with love, one of my core values.

There were long gaps with no response.
Moments where it would have been easy to assume disinterest and move on quietly.
But something told me to stay consistent.

Eventually, he said yes.

What followed wasn’t just an episode.
It became one of the most powerful conversations I’ve had on emotional intelligence - 
deep, grounded, honest, and deeply human.

That moment reminded me of something I keep relearning:

The best things in life often come not from intensity,
but from sincerity sustained over time.

Perseverance doesn’t always look loud.
Sometimes it looks like showing up again, calmly, without entitlement.

Grateful for the conversation.
Grateful for the patience it took to get there.
And grateful for what happens when values lead the way.

Leadership isn’t about your resume.
It’s about your ripple effect.

Want to be remembered?
Leave people better than you found them.

✅Speak truth.
✅Stand for something.
✅Choose compassion over ego.
✅Listen more than you talk.

That’s the real scoreboard:

→ Not your position, but your presence
→ Not your awards, but your actions
→ Not your accolades, but your attitude

Robin Sharma said it best:

“Leadership is not about a title or a designation. It’s about impact, influence and inspiration.”

How you lead matters.
But how you make others feel, that’s what endures.

Be someone who lifts others.
It’s the kind of wealth that multiplies.

♻️ Repost if this hit home
➕ Follow Utkarsh Narang for more on human-centered leadership

Six months from now, you’ll either have....

six months of real progress behind you
or six months of very reasonable excuses.

I’ve learned this over the years:

You don’t grow because you’re the smartest person in the room. 

You grow because you are deliberate, intentional, and willing to sit with discomfort longer than you’d like.

Most of the time, the thing holding you back isn’t lack of ability.

It’s avoidance —
> of the hard conversation,
> the awkward decision,
> the honest admission that something in life or work is no longer working.

It’s easier to stay busy than to be brave.

Easier to explain why now isn’t the right time than to admit you are scared of what happens if you actually try.

Six months will pass whether you confront this 
or keep negotiating with yourself.
 
The question isn’t whether time will move.
It’s whether you will.

When you look back, you don’t regret moving too slowly.

You regret the periods where you knew better and chose comfort anyway.
Six months from now, you want evidence... not intention.

If this hit, you already know what you’ve been avoiding.

Save this to re-ignite that spark and follow Utkarsh Narang for more!

I need to admit something. I am being vulnerable here.

Selling does not come naturally to me.

I love deep conversations. Meaning. Reflection. Human connection.

Sales calls used to feel like a performance. I’d walk in hoping they’d like me. Hoping they’d say yes. Hoping I wouldn’t mess it up.

And every time I needed the outcome… I stopped being myself.

Then I learned a concept from Daniel Priestley that changed everything:

“With or without you” energy.

It doesn’t mean I don’t care. It doesn’t mean I’ll succeed at your expense.

It means this: I want you with me. But my success is not dependent on your approval.

The moment I started walking into conversations with that energy:
– the pressure disappeared
– the conversation deepened
– I stopped performing and started practising my craft

I was no longer trying to convince. I was trying to understand.

People don’t respond to desperation.
They respond to calm conviction.

So here’s a question for you:

👉 Where in your life or work are you needing the outcome a little too much?

Try walking in with “with or without you” energy this week. Care deeply. Release the outcome.

That’s not arrogance. That’s leadership.

Open article: With or Without You Energy by Utkarsh Narang • 3 min read

One of the most important mindset shifts I have learned over the years is this:

The question you ask determines the direction you grow.

“Why is this happening to me?”
keeps you focused on the problem.

“What is this trying to teach me?”
moves you into agency.

The moment you switch questions, you switch power.

Nothing magically becomes easier.
But you stop feeling helpless inside the situation.

In leadership, in careers, in personal growth
this shift separates people who stay stuck
from people who evolve through difficulty.

❌Growth is not about avoiding hard seasons.
✅It is about extracting wisdom from them.

That is how experience turns into maturity.

♻️If this resonates, repost it for someone navigating a hard moment.
➕Follow Utkarsh Narang for more clarity on growth, leadership, and inner work.

We romanticize success.
But survival comes first.

Tesla didn’t grow in a straight line.
It stayed alive long enough to figure things out.

That’s the part most people skip.

Before scale comes stability.
Before dominance comes endurance.
Before momentum comes survival.

If you’re in a phase where the goal is simply to last,
you’re not failing.

You’re building the foundation that growth requires.

Survive first.
Refine next.
Scale later.

♻️ Repost if this reframes how you see slow or difficult seasons.
➕ Follow Utkarsh Narang for more clarity on growth, resilience, and long-term thinking.

Comfort rarely looks dangerous.

It looks like stability.
Familiar routines.
Staying “reasonable.”

But comfort has a quiet cost.

❌It delays hard conversations.
❌It postpones decisions you already know you need to make.
❌It keeps you busy, but not moving.

Failure, at least, gives feedback.
Comfort gives none.

Most careers don’t stall because people fail too much.
They stall because people wait too long.

If something has been on your mind for months, maybe years, it’s probably not going away on its own.

Discomfort is often the price of growth.
Avoiding it is often the reason dreams fade.

♻️ If this made you pause, repost it.
➕ Follow Utkarsh Narang for grounded thinking on growth, career transitions, and building momentum without burning out.

Most people want business ideas.
They just don’t look in the right place.

They look outward.
Markets. Trends. Tools. Tactics.

But some of the most powerful ideas come from lived experience.

On the latest episode of the IgnitedNeurons Podcast, I sat down with Bart Merrell, an entrepreneur who believes that life’s challenges often carry the seeds of opportunity.

We spoke about:
• Why setbacks are not wasted
• How adversity can become an asset
• The “lemonade stand” mindset for entrepreneurship
• When monetization makes sense and when it doesn’t
• Why perspective matters more than strategy

This conversation is not about hustling harder.
It’s about seeing differently.

If you’ve ever wondered whether your experiences matter, this episode might shift how you think about work, business, and opportunity.

🎧 Listen on Spotify and Youtube!

♻️If this resonates, support IgnitedNeurons Podcast by sharing it with someone who’s navigating a challenge and wondering what to do next.

Your brain is not stuck.
It is trained.

And anything trained
can be retrained.

Every reaction you repeat
teaches your nervous system what to expect.

Tension becomes familiar.
Chaos feels normal.
Rest can feel unsafe.

Healing is not a personality change.
It is a pattern change.

Pausing instead of reacting.
Choosing calm on purpose.
Staying present when avoidance feels easier.

By now, the new year energy has settled.
This is when real change begins.

Not loud.
Not rushed.
But consistent.

You are not broken.
You are rewiring.

♻️ Repost if this feels like the right reminder for this stage of the year.
➕ Follow Utkarsh Narang for more clarity on growth and inner work.

Most people wait for permission
before they begin.

The right title.
The right funding.
The right room.

But progress rarely starts in boardrooms.
It starts in garages.
Side projects.
Rough drafts no one applauds.

Apple did not begin fully formed.
Neither do ideas worth building.

Small starts are not a disadvantage.
They are an advantage.

They force clarity.
They reward focus.
They build resilience early.

Start smaller than you want.
Think bigger than feels reasonable.
And keep going longer than feels comfortable.

That is how most meaningful things are built.

♻️Repost if this is the reminder you needed.
➕Follow Utkarsh Narang for more clarity on growth, leadership, and long-term thinking.

Strategy & GTM Advisor | Follow me for strategy, growth, and leadership tips.

I lead Growth at Pricing I/O, the leading hands-on SaaS pricing consultancy.

Our track record:
→ 400+ software companies
→ 98% client satisfaction
→ 15x average Year 1 ROI

Before joining Pricing I/O, I was their client. I spent 11 years at Mercatus, a private equity software company:

→ Started as employee #5
→ Navigated multiple promotions
→ Eventually became Global Head of Product & Marketing
→ Built global teams and owned pricing and GTM strategy
→ Hired Pricing I/O in 2019, a key inflection point
→ Delivered Avg 85% YoY ACV growth 
→ Led to a 9-figure exit to State Street (Fortune 250)
→ Company now manages $1.8+ trillion in private equity assets for the world's largest investors

I lived the pricing struggle every leader fears:
→ Sleepless nights: Are we leaving millions on the table?
→ Boardroom wars: Everyone has an opinion on price
→ Investor pressure: Triple revenue AND keep customers happy

If your feel the same way at your software company, let's talk.

Connect:
→ Book a FREE pricing strategy call at pricingio dot com
→ Join The Moat, my free newsletter for B2B leaders for an inside look at our growth playbook.

Ali Mamujee

In 2012, Best Buy should’ve died:

Wall Street called it “dead walking.”
The stock hit a 10-year low.
They lost $1.7B in a single quarter.

The industry even named the problem: “showrooming.”

Customers walked into Best Buy, touched the TV, scanned the barcode, and bought it cheaper on Amazon - while standing in the aisle.

The advice to the incoming CEO Hubert Joly was obvious:
→ Close stores immediately
→ Fire thousands of employees
→ Accept that physical retail is dead

He did the opposite.

Joly launched "Renew Blue" with a simple insight:
"Showrooming proves customers want the store experience. They just don't want to overpay for it."

His counterintuitive solution:

1. Price Match Guarantee
↳ This didn’t win the sale.
↳ It removed the only reason customers had to leave.

2. Invested in employees
↳ While others treated staff as a cost center.
↳ Joly invested in expertise customers actually valued.

3. Turned stores into brand showcase partners
↳ He realized stores are media channels not just warehouses
↳ He got Samsung, Microsoft, Google, and later Amazon to pay for floor space to showcase their tech.

The result:
→ Stock rallied from $12 (2012) to $70+ (subsequent years)
→ Returned to profitability
→ "Showrooms" became an asset, not a liability
→ Became the go-to partner tech brands.

The lesson:
The leaders who win don’t eliminate their disadvantages. 
They reframe them and build a strategy around what others misinterpret.

♻️ Repost if this resonates.
🔔 Follow Ali Mamujee for more insights.

In 2013, Adobe made the most hated pricing decision in tech:

~ 50,000 customers signed a petition begging them not to do it.
They ignored every single one.

For years, Adobe sold its creative suite in a box:
Pay once. Use it forever.

It worked - until it didn’t.

Customers skipped upgrades (the old version still worked)
Revenue spiked at launches and sagged in between
The upfront price locked out millions of would-be users

So in May 2013, Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen announced:

CS6 would be the last major perpetual release.
Future innovation would ship through Creative Cloud.

The response was intense. Forums were flooded.
Long-time customers were angry.

And the financial impact was real.
Net income fell from $832.8M to $290.0M - a ~65% drop.

But Adobe wasn’t just changing prices.
They were changing who could enter.

Narayen faced a choice: listen to 50,000 angry customers or risk short-term pain for long-term transformation. He chose the risk.

By moving to subscriptions, they:
- Lowered the barrier to start
- Created continuous value instead of one-time upgrades
- Built an always-on relationship with customers

Over time, that changed everything.

→ Stock: ~$37.68 (2012) → $444.68 (2024)
→ Revenue: $4.4B (2012) → $21.5B (2024)
→ Subscribers: 37M+ (2024)

The lesson isn’t that subscriptions magically create growth.

It’s that pricing power comes from removing friction for the right customers.

When you make it easier for people to start, stay, and succeed, revenue follows.

♻️ Repost for your network
🔔 Follow Ali Mamujee for more pricing insights.

The advice I needed the most when I felt incredibly lost:

Pursue yourself.

Sometimes feeling lost is that pause before clarity.

Here are 3 truths that helped me:

1. Find What Lights You Up 
 ↳ Pay attention to what energizes, not just what pays.
 ↳ Trust the moments that make you feel alive.

2. Break Free From Others' Dreams 
 ↳ Stop chasing someone else's definition of success.
 ↳ Your path doesn't need to make sense to anyone else.

3. Start Small, Start Now 
 ↳ Take one tiny step toward what interests you.
 ↳ Let action clear the fog of uncertainty.

Your gut knows where you need to go. 

Trust that voice – it's been right all along.

♻️ Repost for others who need to hear this.
 
Quote credit: @elevated states

In 1962, Ford spotted a generation priced out of their dreams:

A wave of young buyers (baby boomers) wanted something sporty. Something that felt like freedom.

But the options were out of reach: 
Corvette: ~$4,000. 
European sports cars: even more.

Ford’s research showed these buyers would pay up to $2,500 for the right car: style + identity, without luxury-sports pricing.

Most automakers would've tried to build a cheaper Corvette: strip features, cut corners, compete on specs.

Ford took a different bet.

Lee Iacocca, Ford's VP and the internal champion for this vision, realized these buyers weren't buying horsepower.

They were buying identity. Style. Customization. A car that said something about who they were.

So the Mustang was designed around that insight:
→ Style over specs (emotion beats horsepower)
→ Customization over bundles (let buyers make it theirs)
→ 4 seats, not 2 (sporty and practical)
→ Built on the Falcon platform (so the economics worked)

They didn't build a cheap sports car. 
They created a new category: the pony car.

Result:
→ Launched April 1964 at $2,368
 → Forecast: 100,000 in year one
 → Actual: 418,000
 → 1M+ in 18 months

The lesson:

That's what value-based pricing really means:
Pick the market you want. Pick the buyer you're serving. 
Then design the offer that wins at that price point.

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Patrick's strategy for Colossus hit different. 

(Colossus is a premium print magazine + media company run by Patrick O'Shaughnessy - it’s one of my favorite things to get in the mail.)

He wrote: "I don't like to destroy competitors. 
I just feel bad that it's not unique enough."

That’s always been my philosophy.
If we’re being compared, we haven’t built something distinct enough yet.

I see too many B2B companies stuck in feature warfare - matching competitors point-by-point, racing to parity.

The problem isn't that they're losing.

It's that they're playing a game where "winning" still leaves them commoditized.

Most strategies sound like:
"We'll be faster."
"We'll be cheaper."
"We'll outwork them."

But the best strategies don't start with comparison.
They start with: What are we building that didn't exist before? 

When your offering is truly unique:
- Price objections disappear
- Competitors become irrelevant
- Customers can't find alternatives

The best strategy isn't about winning the race.
It's about running a different race entirely.

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If your B2B deals keep stalling, run these 3 checks:

These checks come straight from our sales-call reviews with trusted advisors.

This is for complex, multi-stakeholder B2B cycles.

1) Are all the right people in the room?
In complex B2B purchases, decisions rarely sit with one person.
Buying groups average ~5.4 stakeholders - each with different incentives and concerns (CEB).

That’s why stalled deals often sit with a single champion: someone who loves the idea but doesn’t own the budget.

Test: If your champion left tomorrow, would the deal survive?

Fix: Keep your champion empowered but earn access to the people who weigh in and sign off.

2) Can you make the future state concrete?
Deals drag when the customer keeps re-explaining themselves.
Calls spread out. People rotate in. Memory resets.

Test: On every call, can you say:
→ Here’s the problem you described
→ Here’s what “better” looks like (in your words)
→ Here’s the gap between now and there

Fix: Restate the before/after every call. Not once. Every time.

3) Have you put a number on their pain?
Most reps stop at “that sounds painful.”
But pain without numbers rarely creates urgency.

Test: When they say "discounting is out of control," do you know the actual cost?

Example: A $100M SaaS company with a 5% discounting gap leaks $5M/year.
Make it real:
→ ~$400K/month
→ ~$20K/day 

Suddenly a $200K engagement isn’t “expensive.” It’s a 10 working-day payback.

Fix: Don't build a fancy ROI calculator. Get one simple number they agree is real.

If a deal is stuck in “maybe,” it’s usually failing one of these checks.

Run the diagnostic. Fix the failure point. Watch it move.

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A $100M+ company wrote this in an RFP they sent us:

“We’ve created the appearance of modern pricing with none of the behavior.”

Most honest thing I've read.

They had done everything “right”:
→ Moved from seats to usage
→ Launched a self-serve tier
→ Built enterprise packaging

On paper, it looked modern. But underneath:

→ Sales still discounted like it was 2015
→ Customers still couldn’t explain what they were paying for
→ Finance still couldn’t forecast revenue with confidence

The model changed. The behavior didn’t.

At Pricing I/O, we're seeing this pattern everywhere:

Companies adopt the language of modern pricing - usage-based, PLG, value-aligned - without building the system to support it.

So what happens?

→ The new pricing sits on a page no one actually uses
→ Sales defaults to whatever closes the deal
→ Customers feel the disconnect and push back harder

The gap between “announced pricing” and “real pricing” quietly grows.

And leadership wonders why the transformation isn’t working.

Here’s the truth most teams miss:
Pricing transformation isn’t a launch. It’s a rewiring.

It touches:
→ How sales gets paid
→ How CS talks about value
→ How finance measures success
→ How product designs packaging

Change the model without changing those and the organization pulls it back to the old way.

If your pricing looks modern but still feels stuck, the problem probably isn’t the model. It’s everything around it.

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A higher price can literally make the same product feel better:
(according to brain scan)

Not “feel” as in marketing fluff.
Feel as in: your brain processes it differently.

In a 2017 experiment (INSEAD + University of Bonn), people tasted the same €12 red wine but saw three different price tags:

- Wine bottle #1: €3
- Wine bottle #2: €6
- Wine bottle #3: €18

The “€18” wine was rated as more pleasant.

And brain scans (MRI) showed price cues shifted activity in reward/valuation-related regions.

Same liquid. Different reality.

The point isn’t “charge more.” 
The point is: price is part of the experience.

The pricing lesson for SaaS:

If you underprice (or over-discount), you don’t just lose revenue.

You often create:
- more skepticism (“what’s the catch?”)
- more nitpicking (“why doesn’t it do X?”)
- less patience during onboarding (“not worth the time”)

Because the brain uses price as a shortcut for value.

So the real question isn’t:
“What’s the minimum I can charge?”

It’s:

“What price supports the value story customers need to believe - so they actually experience the value?”

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Source: Schmidt et al. (2017), Scientific Reports - INSEAD & University of Bonn

In 2008, Airbnb was failing.

They had almost no traffic. 

Co-founders (Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia) had racked up $20,000 in credit card debt each. 
 
And they’d made less than $5,000 from the actual Airbnb business.

So they did something that sounds like a joke…
They made election cereal.

Two boxes: Obama O’s and Cap’n McCain’s. 

They printed and hand-assembled 1,000 boxes, and sold them as limited edition collectibles for $40 each. 

The press ate it up.
Obama O’s sold out. 
Cap’n McCain’s didn’t. 

But the stunt did what the product couldn’t (yet):
It generated $20,000–$30,000 - more than the company had made from bookings. 

Then came the interview that changed everything.

Paul Graham - the founder of Y Combinator, the startup accelerator - didn't love the Airbnb idea.

Until he heard the cereal story.

His line: "If you can convince people to pay $40 for a $4 box of cereal, you can probably convince strangers to stay in other strangers' homes."

He called them "cockroaches."
They just wouldn't die.

Then → Now
Airbnb’s FY2024 revenue was $11.1B. 
And it generated $4.5B in trailing-twelve-month free cash flow. 

The lesson for founders:
Runway isn't only money in the bank. 
It's your ability to manufacture value when the core model isn't working yet.

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I spent 11 years at Mercatus that sold for 9 figures.
If I had to credit one framework, it’d be this one slide.

Back in 2015, Peter Cohan trained our team at Mercatus.
(He wrote Great Demo, Doing Discovery, & Suspending Belief)

He taught us the Situation Slide (see image 👇)
Real example + editable slide link in the comments 👇

If you run B2B sales calls, use this as the North Star for discovery.

It forces clarity before you pitch.
Who it’s for. What’s at risk. Why now. And what it’s worth.

It didn’t just improve sales. It became our storytelling framework for the entire company.

→ Sales used it to qualify pipeline 
→ Product used it to prioritize the roadmap 
→ Marketing pulled messaging directly from it
→ Customer Success referenced it during onboarding 

Fast forward to Pricing I/O: our pipeline nearly 2x'd - and win rates had to follow. So I brought it back.

It’s the fastest way I know to spot unqualified pipeline early.

Incomplete slide = incomplete qualification. 

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Mailchimp’s accidental move 5x’d growth in a year.

Here’s how it happened:

In 2009, Mailchimp had $0 in funding.
Their competitor, Constant Contact, had raised $100M+.

Mailchimp couldn’t outspend them.
So co-founder Ben Chestnut needed a different way to grow.

Ben’s plan: split Mailchimp into two products.
→ Free for building email lists
→ Paid for sending emails

But the lead engineer said the codebase was too complex to split.

The engineer’s workaround:
“Instead of two products, I’ll make it one but free up to a limit.”

Ben’s response: “We’re running out of time. Do it.”

Ben later said they didn’t want to give anything away for free:
 “We wanted to charge the hell out of people.

That’s it. No grand strategy.
An engineer’s shortcut became the freemium model.

The results: 

→ Users: 85k → 450k in 12 months (≈5x)
→ Profit increased by 650% 
→ CAC dropped to under $100

Here's what made it work:

Free wasn't charity. Free was the funnel.
Every email sent by a free user carried Mailchimp's badge. 
Customer usage became the marketing engine.

In 2021, Intuit acquired Mailchimp for $12B.

The lesson:
Freemium only works when "free" creates a loop: 

→ What action delivers value fast? 
→ What action spreads the product? 
→ What moment naturally triggers "now I'll pay"?

If your free tier doesn't answer all three - it's not freemium. It's just free.

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AI was supposed to deliver massive value

Instead it’s delivering massive shelfware.

AI has become the easiest justification for a price increase.

But a lot of customers aren’t adopting it. They’re hesitating.

Because they don’t trust they’ll stay in budget.

Some numbers that explain why:
→ 68% of vendors restrict AI to premium tiers 
→ AI add-ons can add 30–110% to the base cost 
→ Orgs use only 47% of their SaaS licenses 

And the pattern looks like this:

Vendor: “We added AI. Price goes up.”
Buyer: “Fine. We need to stay current.”
Finance: “Why did spend jump?”
Users: “I’m not clicking that - what if it charges us?”

One pricing strategist put it perfectly:
“Usage stopped not because of price, but because admins didn’t trust they’d stay in budget.” 

If customers are afraid to use what they’re paying for, you didn’t create value. You created anxiety.

The best pricing doesn’t maximize what you can charge.
It maximizes what customers will actually use.

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How to sell your most expensive plan:

Change what it’s compared to.

Behavioral economist Dan Ariely showed this in an experiment.
He tested The Economist’s subscription options with 100 MIT students:

→ Web Only: $59 
→ Print Only: $125 
→ Print + Web: $125

With all three options available:
→ 16% chose Web-only
→ 0% chose Print-only
→ 84% chose Print + Web

Then he removed the "useless" Print-only option.

The results flipped:
68% chose Web-only while 32% chose Print + Web

The high tier went from the clear favorite to the minority choice just by removing an option nobody wanted anyway.

People decide based on what something sits next to.

If your high tier plan feels expensive instead of worth it, look at the context you're giving it.

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